Basel II
Trichet still best bet for ECB job
Jean-Claude Trichet's trial is not an insurmountable obstacle to his accession to ECB presidency. But while the outcome is uncertain, French officials must come up with a back-up candidate, says Stephen Sandelius, Paris correspondent for Market News…
Commerzbank, IBM Mull Outsourcing Deal
FRANKFURT—In what looks like a pioneering deal, Commerzbank is working out the details of an IT outsourcing arrangement with IBM that would see the vendor take on responsibility not just for low-level infrastructure, but complete management of major…
Fitch acquires IC2 First op risk database
Fitch Risk, a division of rating agency Fitch Ratings, has acquired the IC2 First (financial institutions risk scenario trends) database from financial services provider, Zurich Financial Services Group.
Mercer snaps up Oliver Wyman
Mercer, a consulting division of New York-listed Marsh & McLennan, has bought specialist risk management and financial service practice consultants Oliver Wyman & Company for an undisclosed sum.
Basel Committee Releases New Operational Risk Sound Practices Paper
The Risk Management Group of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision today released the final 'Sound Practices for the Management and Supervision of Operational Risk'.
The Price May Not Be Right!
Significant events that occur after a market has closed—but before the fund is valued—may lead to consumers buying a fund at an incorrect price due to stale pricing.
BIS paper slams rating agencies
A new paper just published by the Bank for International Settlements' Monetary and Economic Department, titled 'Are credit ratings procyclical?' takes a critical view of rating agencies' activities.
BIS paper advocates macroprudential regulation
A new paper published on the Bank for International Settlements website attempts to alter perceptions of financial institution regulation by looking at the discipline through a macroprudential framework.
EU Parliamentary hearings raise a variety of issues
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament held a public hearing on Tuesday, Febaruary 19, titled "Minimum Capital Requirements for Banks and Investment Firms (Basel II)".
EU committee overhauled
At the February 18 meeting of the Council of Economics and Finance Ministers (CEFM), a decision was taken to overhaul the structure of the Financial Services Policy Group (FSPG).
Basel trouble brewing in Europe's accession countries
Domestic banks and corporate banking customers in central and eastern Europe could have trouble adapting to the changes the revised Basel Accord would have on their economies.
Continuous-linked settlement: Extending to Asia
Continuous-linked settlement – the initiative designed to eliminate forex settlement risk – went live at the end of last year. But with only Australia and Japan represented in the first batch of currencies, what will CLS mean for Asia’s banks?
KPMG Study highlights regional differences in Basel implementation
According to a recently released global study by the consulting arm of KPMG, the the international auditing firm, there are significant differences in how financial institutions in the US and Europe are preparing for the coming Basel Accord revisions.
Waiting for guidance
South Korea's banks have made huge strides in implementing risk management systems over the past few years, but Basel II is not yet a driving force, with banks waiting for the Korean regulator to publish local guidelines.
Risk management based on stochastic volatility
Risk management approaches that do not incorporate randomly changing volatility tend to under- or overestimate the risk, depending on current market conditions. We show how some popular stochastic volatility models in combination with the hyperbolic…
IAS will inject volatility into financial statements, says S&P
The required adoption of International Accounting Standards (IAS) for publicly listed European Union banks by 2005 is set to boost not only the transparency, but also the volatility of these institutions' financial statements in coming years, rating…
Self-assessments for scorecards
In this second and final paper on the scorecard approach to operational risk, Dresdner Bank's Ulrich Anders and Michael Sanstedt discuss the logistics of preparing and implementing the self-assessment questionnaire, before discussing the advantages and…
Kamakura upgrades key risk management system
Kamakura, a Honolulu-based risk management technology company, has released a new version of Kamakura Risk Manager (KRM), its integrated risk management application.
Sponsor's article > Don't count on buffers
One possible mitigator of the pro-cyclical impact of risk-sensitive capital requirements would be counter-cyclical changes in capital buffers. Empirical evidence on this issue is scarce and a new regulatory capital regime could well induce a behavioural…
McDonough paints brave new world of bank regulation
Echoing remarks made earlier in the week, William McDonough, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, stressed that the results of the third Quantitative Impact Statement (QIS3) being compiled at the moment show that few changes will have to be…
UK FSA announces own conflict-of-interest rules for banks
Today the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) has released Consultation Paper 171, designed to address conflict-of-interest issues and bias in analyst recommendations.
ORIAG paper published on FSA website
The Operational Risk Implementation Advisory Group (ORIAG), which is chaired by the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA), has posted its working paper, "Implementation of the Capital Accord for Operational Risk" on its website.
FSA calls for firms to keep business continuity a priority
The UK's chief financial watchdog, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), has called on the 12,000 firms it regulates to keep business continuity as a priority.
Patriot Act Point of Pain: Reference Data
The financial industry is expected to spend more than $10 billion to comply with the Patriot Act over the next three years. And at the heart of the issue is the data.